Ode to Fry

Sweet Jebus Christ, I fucking love fried food. French fries, fried chicken, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, fried shrimp, egg rolls, etc., and so forth. What is the essence of fried food? I have seen the essence. I have tasted the essence. I have passed the essence and gone back for more tasty fried essence. The essence is the fried outer layer; the "skin" if you will.

The skin defies explanation. If you've never had it before, you cannot possibly understand. Any description would lead your mind astray and you would probably be disgusted. This is incorrect. However, if you have tried the skin (and if you are an American male, there is no doubt that you have and you are addicted) the mention of fry waters the mouth. Personally, if I hadn't just finished eating 25+ bufalo wings, I would need to cease writing this article and make a phone call (refer to Mr. Kinton's June 3rd Bro-Post). But, alas, my belly is full and my fry-sense satisfied. However, I'll attempt a description; golden, crispy, salty... umm... delicious... and so on.

I have no idea how they make fry. I understand that hot oil is involved, and some sort of batter, and a dipping action with a metal basket. This is all I know, this is all that I need to know. My relationship with fry is need-to-know (obviously) and this is beyond satisfactory. As far as I can tell, dipping battered food into hot oil coats the food in magical, fantastic stuff that elicits a supremely positive reaction from the taste buds.

After 3 or 4 minutes of exhaustive research, I've definitively concluded that there is no way to recreate deep-fat-fry technology within the confines of one's apartment (or parent's house). The best way to get at fried foods is to go to the source; the restaurant. This is optimal, despite all the effort it takes to move your body to the food-gettin'-place, the fry-skin is always at its absolute peak moments after exiting the hot-as-shit oil. Alternatives include ordering delivery from such fantastic establishments as AK's (should you be fortunate to be in the Roxbury-Mission Hill locale) or your best local chinese restaurant (undoubtedly Food Wall. more info on this to come in future posts). The main issue with fried food delivery is that with every passing minute, the fried food becomes soggier and soggier, grossifying its styrafoam container or making the paper bag container completely translucent. It's still very much edible and good, but the tasty-factor drops logorithmically with time. Thus, I prefer and recommend to our dear readers that fried food be enjoyed at its source.

Be warned though; eating fried foods at their peak tastiness can cause severe mouth-gullet burns for the unprepared। The best way to combat this is patience; eat all fried foods at their peak every time and your mouth will eventually develop a burn callous over the entire surface of the mouth and tongue that will protect from future burns. This takes time to develop, however. Some may take weeks, some months, others years, but rest assured that once your mouth has adapted to foods of temperature exceeding 400 degrees (Fahrenheit), nothing can stop you.

Delivery or DiGiorno?

Hunger is a bitch. Sure, food tastes good. Some food even tastes really good (hot pockets, hot dogs, and pretty much anything else with ‘hot’ in the name). Sometimes, however, increasingly violent pangs of hunger simply do not provide enough motivation to find adequate sustenance. Whether you are in bed, on the couch, or in any other room that is not the kitchen, it is often difficult to muster the energy required to achieve satiation. Even if you make it to the kitchen, it is more than likely that the long, grueling journey to the refrigerator will have rendered you physically incapable of opening a bag of marshmallows, let alone a mammoth refrigerator door. That’s some serious resistance (stay tuned for a future informational entry on how to utilize every-day household products for minimum resistance exercise to prevent complete muscular atrophy). Successfully prying the fridge door open, despite being a Herculean feat, is hardly the final obstacle. Further obstructing the potential hunger satisfaction is the fact that not every item in the refrigerator is prepared for immediate consumption. Other than fresh fruit (gross) and vegetables (super gross), most refrigerated items are housed in some kind of container. These containers must be opened and their contents often mixed with other items to be properly enjoyed. This process is difficult enough when you are already in the kitchen, but if you’re on the couch and immersed in a Deadliest Warrior marathon on Spike TV, it’s damn near impossible. If you can’t stand the hunger any longer and only five minutes remain before the climactic reenactment between the feudal Samurai and U.S. military sniper, there is only one solution: making someone else bring you food. As the poor soul in the hypothetical above is obviously unlikely to have a serious girlfriend, he would be unable to command a spouse to do his bidding. Even if the average Spike TV watcher somehow manages a romantic relationship, it is clear that the lack of respect for the bro-show watching boyfriend would preclude the already suffering girlfriend from stooping so low as to prepare food for this mongoloid. Enter delivery…

Food delivery has ushered in a new age for humanity and has eliminated the last vestiges of the hunter/gatherer instinct in all who seek its service. Able to satisfy all hunger and quench all thirst with the least effort imaginable, food delivery has allowed the human race to focus on far more admirable pursuits, such as watching television or riding motorized scooters on city sidewalks. Ordering delivery is not merely a means to an end, however. It is an art form. For example, one must be aware of the best dishes a restaurant has to offer without ever setting foot in the restaurant itself. Moreover, the sharp delivery service user should possess extensive knowledge of price comparisons between restaurants, special offers, heavy traffic hours, and how many sides of honey mustard can be obtained without paying extra. The home setting also factors in. Only the most experienced orderers are able to predict a delivery driver’s speed or a pizza chef’s backlog of orders with any accuracy, so it is of primary importance to limit transaction time on the ordering end. This can be achieved a number of ways. One oft-encountered situation involves becoming hungry while playing video games. Here, it is important to maximize production and minimize waste. In order to make the best of the time available it is crucial to always have at least one hand on the controller. Relinquishing grip for even a moment wastes time and could cause you to miss crucial items, like health or ammo. Following this no-free-hands approach, the most logical method of ordering is the speakerphone. Reaching into a pocket or onto a table requires the use of one hand, but this is allowed as it is only temporary and the other hand is still firmly gripping the controller. The left hand is recommended for the reaching because the right hand is closer to the buttons on most standard controllers. Open the phone, press the speaker button, and hit redial (because you clearly ordered from the same place yesterday). Both hands can now be returned to the comfortable confines of the controller and an order can be placed. Memorization of your address and phone number is also highly recommended to streamline this process.

Another situation that would leave the world helpless without the blessing of delivery is faced when you are watching a movie and it looks like Ryan Phillippe is totally about to win the heart of the sexy, yet shy class nerd। The video game speakerphone method outlined above does not apply here for two reasons. The first reason is the noise factor. You might be watching Phillippe making his move and fall into a heated battle with the person on the phone about whether they can substitute jalapeno poppers for fries. The next minute, Freddie Prinze, Jr. is slow dancing with the hot nerdy chick and you have no idea what happened to Phillippe. The other reason for avoiding the phone is the 95% chance that you’re totally baked and couldn’t follow the plot of a Care Bears movie, let alone coherently order a buffalo bomb pizza and onion rings. Luckily for the stoner, and the restaurant employee on the other end of the phone line, food can be ordered for delivery online. This allows both free customization of the many items on a restaurant’s menu at the click of a mouse and full concentration on the inevitable slap-fight between Ryan and Freddie. You might have to pause the movie to get the food when it arrives, unless a roommate mistakenly thinks the door is for him, but this is a small price to pay for otherwise avoiding all contact with humans and refrigerators.